At least the hike was fun...

Stepping into my newly finished splitboard in the crisp dark air at 5:00 a.m. was what I had been craving since finishing the thing. The morning had the promise of fun and a hope for some nice turns down the enormous south face of Mt. Superior. I met up with Forrest Gladding and Pouchy for the venture. I have ridden with Forrest a couple times at the Bird and this was my first time meeting Pouchy. I was definitely stoked to be there to tag along.

The morning was clear and the stars worked hard to be seen. Forrest stopped periodically for some star gazing and caught a couple shooting stars. We had plenty of time to get to the top and ended up being well ahead of the prime part of the day where the snow would be soft enough to ride and hard enough to still hold together.

We hit the summit just shy of 9 a.m. having taken it easy across the ridge line. A skier passed us in a hurry for the summit. We let him go ahead and summited just behind him. The ride down was not the highlight so I won't dwell on that, but I'll never get tired of watching the sun rise while perched atop a ridge line.

We got done early enough for me to make it to Canyons by 11 a.m. I originally went up for a contest but was so mentally done from the lack of sleep and the climb I just ended up goofing of until I had my fill. It was a long fun day on my snowboard, hopefully next time the conditions will be better.

Morning gear check. Is it all there?

yep.... way too early.

Forrest and Pouchy just down the ridge from Cardiff

Early Morning exposure. I wish I could have gotten some with the lights below before the morning twilight set in.

Still a ways to go.

Forrest and Pouchy

Forrest Gladding

This Knife was pretty sketchy. A lot of snow had melted of making it narrower than it was previously. Breaking trail across it was no easy task. On one side you had about a hundred foot drop across a rock strewn slope, and on the other a steep pitch of frozen snow with no ice axe in hand to arrest a fall, which would eventually find the cliffs below. I took my time getting across making sure my foot placements were good.

Stole these from Forrest Gladding. Click on his name to see the rest of his photos. He snaps some good ones. Pouchy also blogged the event check it out here

Me dropping in. It was about as loud as snowboarding can get. It isn't very often that you snowboard such hard snow on this type of slope.